Why We Must Read Young Adult Books that Deal with Sexual Content

ALAN Review, Summer 2006 by Bott, C J

Inexcusable is about date rape told from the male's point of view. Keir Sarafian believes he is a good guy, a fairly decent student, starter on the football team, and popular with the "right" kids at school. He doesn't plan to rape Gigi Boudakian, whom he has loved from afar. He respects her and her relationship with her Air Force boyfriend stationed just too far away to make it home for prom. Keir has grown up in a loving though dysfunctional family. His best friend and drinking partner is his father. His two older sisters, who have protected Keir from family secrets, have gone on to college. A popular football jock, Keir is privileged at school and at home and has a sense of self that is not grounded in reality, particularly when he is drinking. He and Gigi have been friends for years, and he loves her. As the realities of his life start to become obvious, Keir turns to Gigi for support and believes her kindness is born of her need for him. The story is told in flashbacks, after the rape has happened. The author slowly reveals the story and the events that created Keir's misinformation about his own life and his relationship with Gigi. He keeps saying, "I couldn't have done what she says, I am a good guy. Just ask anybody." Keir has grown up the way some of our male students have, with a belief that they can do anything, that they deserve anything, can say anything, and have earned the privileges they take for granted. That, mixed with a misunderstood definition of date rape, can be very dangerous. Inexcusable provides the opportunity for much needed discussions on this topic for both our male and female students.

Jailbait deals with statutory rape, a topic teens need to be more conscious of. Andrea Kaplan is 15 years old and very lonely. The best relationship in her life is with her older brother who is away at college. Her parents barely communicate with each other or her. Andrea's mother seems caught in a valium-controlled depression, constantly worrying about her own weight and trying to monitor Andrea's. Her father is a dentist who works too many hours to be available. At school, Andrea is harassed because of her large breasts. To avoid the school bus and the taunts, she walks home, which is how she meets Frank, seemingly just an older guy driving by who takes the time to wave to her each day. There is nothing special about him except he notices Andrea. They slowly develop a relationship that starts from that simple wave and progresses to groping in an abandoned model home. Frank is a master manipulator, and Andrea is extremely needy. The fact that she tells Frank her name is Vanessa proves she knows the situation was wrong from the beginning. Frank tells her how beautiful she is, how voluptuous her breasts are, as he undresses her and caresses her. No one has ever said such things to her. Then Frank says they cannot have sex because it would be statutory rape. She begs him, saying she wants it and that should make it okay. After several months of meeting and touching, Andrea finally convinces Frank, and on her sixteenth birthday, they plan to have sex. As the reader realizes, Frank is a dangerous personality and the waited for event turns into a three-second rape with none of the tenderness and caring Frank has lavished on her for the past several months. The next time is worse. But Andrea keeps going back, fantasizing about the tender moments and making excuses for the violent ones, until Frank stops showing up. It is Andrea's inability to let go of what she knows is an unhealthy relationship that makes me believe this book must be read. This is rape of a willing but insecure and unknowing victim who never tells anyone until a year later when she shares it with her brother. How many of our female students easily fall into such a relationship? How many stay tied to that type of relationship and lose all sense of self? And how many carry this pattern into adulthood?